Tuesday, August 24, 2010

NYT supports vouchers: Haiti’s Schools

STOP THE PRESSES! The NYT editorial page has come out in favor of vouchers! Uh, well, for families in Haiti anyway… I'll credit the NYT editorial page for coming a LONG way on this issue, but I have to wonder why they don't see that what they've written here could, almost word-for-word, also be written about our country:

the current system's failures are at the root of the country's thwarted potential.

Nearly all primary schools in Haiti today are private; parents, eager to give their children a better life, pay dearly. Judging from Haiti's high illiteracy and dropout rates and dire lack of qualified teachers, the system needs a complete overhaul.

The plan to reinvent the education sector is hugely ambitious but relatively simple. It does not try to build entirely from scratch — many schools will still be privately run. But the government, with international help, will provide generous subsidies to parents who choose to send their children to schools that accept new layers of oversight and accountability, including government accreditation, a modernized national curriculum and teacher retraining. These schools will also have to be certified as structurally sound.

The goal is to provide universal free or nearly-free education for kindergarten through 12th grades in accredited schools, with eventual government financing. The full transformation is expected to take 20 years.